One Kick: A Novel

by Chelsea Cain

  Finally it was over. Frank took her blood-caked hand and gently started dabbing at it with one of the wipes. It felt wet and cold. He touched the wipe against the wire-man ring.

  “Stop,” Kick told him.

  Frank looked up at her quizzically. Kick took the wipe from him. “I can do it,” she said, starting to clean her own palm. “I want my purse,” she added. “It’s in the hallway. It has my nunchuks in it, and my throwing stars.” Frank gave her a slight nod. But what she really needed was information, and Frank couldn’t help her with that. There was only one person who could. “I need a minute,” she said. She shot a look at Bishop. “With him.”

  Frank’s posture stiffened. “He will lie to you,” Frank said. “I know him. And he will lie to you.”

  “You lied to me,” Kick reminded him.

  She saw Frank wince.

  Bishop stood motionless, watching them.

  Frank’s eyes roamed to the ceiling, then landed on Bishop. His freckled ears were pink. “Tread carefully, my friend,” he said to Bishop. “I don’t care who you work for.” He turned back to Kick. “I’m going to make a call. It will take about four minutes. We’ll get your purse on the way out.”

  Frank stepped away, got his phone out, and slipped around the corner into the hallway. Kick heard the sound of a plastic bottle bouncing across the floor, and then Frank swearing. Mina was taking fingerprints off the surface of James’s desk. The monitors had all been turned off, and another tech was packing all the computer equipment into evidence boxes.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with you,” Bishop said quietly.

  Kick gave him a sharp glance. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He had an affair with your mother,” Bishop said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Kick’s pulse throbbed in her temples.

  “Frank hasn’t been promoted in almost a decade,” Bishop continued. “So whatever happened between them, I’m guessing the Bureau knows about it.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Kick snapped, closing her hand into a fist. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

  “Okay,” Bishop said.

  Kick took a fresh wipe from the box in his hand and began to scrub furiously at the blood on her palm. “You owe me,” she said to Bishop. She looked him in the eye. “You’re some kind of cop.”

  Bishop pulled out another wipe from the box. “I used to be some kind of cop. Now I work in private security.”

  “You said you were a weapons dealer,” Kick said.

  “I was,” Bishop said, cleaning between his fingers. “Part of my responsibilities to my employer was to be the public face of his operation. Now I work on special projects.”

  “Who do you work for?” Kick asked.

  “A man named Devlin.” He pulled out another wipe and offered it to her.

  “Devlin?” Kick said. “He just has one name?”

  “David Decker Devlin,” Bishop said. “But you won’t find him on the Internet either.”

  Kick didn’t know if she was supposed to believe him or not. She tossed the wipe she was using and took the fresh one from Bishop. “Why’s he so interested in finding missing kids?”

  Bishop’s eyes were impenetrable. “His interest is in keeping me happy. I do a lot of work for him. This is just one piece of it.”

  “Bishop isn’t even your real name, is it?” Kick said.

  He smiled faintly. “You saw my driver’s license.”

  Frank came back around the corner and strode toward them with something under his arm.

  “I’ll find whoever did this,” Bishop said under his breath.

  So will I, Kick thought.

  Frank tossed Bishop something sealed in a Visqueen pouch. “Mina wants you to take off your pants,” he said. “You can put this on. I assume your employer will be wanting you to observe the processing of the crime scene?”

  “He’ll appreciate your cooperation, as always,” Bishop said. He handed Kick the wipes and the Visqueen bag, which had a label that read Tyvek Coveralls, and started unbuttoning his jeans.

  Frank gave an exasperated sigh. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  Bishop stood shirtless with his pants open and low on his hips. A trail of black hair led down his midsection to his black underwear. He shrugged at Frank. “What?”

  “I’m taking the kid to the hospital to see the boy,” Frank said.

  The hospital.

  The box of wipes and the Tyvek coveralls dropped from Kick’s hands onto the floor.

  James was alive.

  “He’s not out of the woods,” Frank added quickly. “He’s lost a lot of blood.” Kick followed Frank, stunned, as he led her off the plastic sheeting. “They transfused him in the ER and he just went into surgery.” He shot a begrudging glance back in Bishop’s direction. “But apparently our friend is not a half-bad medic.”

  “You should put a guard on his room,” Bishop called after them. He had stepped out of his pants and was stuffing them into a plastic bag.

  “Protect the only person who can identify a child killer,” Frank replied. “I would never have thought of that.”

  Kick looked at her hand, at James’s wire talisman, then back at the place on the floor where she’d found it, where Monster lay sprawled.

  “You want the boxers too?” Bishop called to Frank.

  Monster didn’t look like he was asleep anymore. He looked too flat somehow, like some substantial part of him had deflated. Next to him, on the floor, was a yellow plastic evidence marker with the number 24 printed on it in black. That’s what he was now: evidence. Another crime scene biohazard.

  “What’s going to happen to my dog?” Kick asked Frank.

  Frank sucked in a long breath and looked like he had a sudden headache.

  He had never been good at giving her bad news.

  Kick looked over at Bishop, who had one leg in some kind of white zip-up paper suit. “What’s going to happen to my dog?” Kick called to him.

  Bishop paused, pants around his knees, and his eyes went to Frank.

  “There are protocols,” Frank said, touching his ear. He couldn’t even look at her. “For disposing of crime scene . . . biological evidence.”

  “You mean,” Kick said numbly, “that he’s going to get incinerated with a bunch of biowaste.” She had failed her dog in life; she was not going to fail him in death.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Bishop said.

  “What?” Kick asked, unsure she had heard right.

  Bishop had the suit on and was zipping it up, not even looking at her. “I’ll take care of your dog,” he said. He adjusted the cuffs on the white paper arms. “I’ll bury him. When we’re done.”

  And despite all his lies, Kick believed him.

  26

  THE HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM was cold and the yellow dress felt threadbare and insubstantial. A pair of hospital footies did little to warm her bare feet. Kick picked a piece of Monster’s hair off the daisy-printed fabric and set it gently in a little stack she was making on the couch upholstery next to her. Everything seemed louder, brighter: she was acutely aware of the hospital’s ventilation system blowing air against her skin, the incessant hum of the fluorescent can lights overhead. The static of the hospital intercom announcements seemed earsplitting. Colors looked different; even the drab earth tones of the furniture seemed electric. But the color in the room that stood out most was the red on Kick’s dress. Kick had never seen a richer shade of red; it was Communist China red. Kick peeled a piece of Monster’s hair from the blood-encrusted fabric and set it with the others.

  She heard Frank’s footsteps in the hallway, and then the door opened and Frank backed into the room with two cups of coffee. She had her head lowered so that her hair formed a screen around her face, and he must not have been
able to see her eyes, to see that she’d looked up at him. For an instant she saw his real face, spent and haggard, stained with weary sadness. But when he set one of the coffee cups down in front of her a moment later, his features had rearranged into gentle concern.

  How strange that he would be here, now, for this.

  The shrinks all asked about Frank. Kick had made the mistake of telling the Jungian about the Christmas cards. She hadn’t said a word about Frank to a therapist since.

  Kick looked at the coffee that Frank had set in front of her. She didn’t touch coffee, but Frank would have no way of knowing that. The only version of her that he knew, was twelve years old.

  “He’s still in surgery,” Frank said. He took his time taking off his jacket and draping it on a nearby chair. His soft belly hung over his belt. The armpits of his white shirt were darkened with sweat. He rolled up his sleeves and stretched, then gingerly sat down next to her. Kick felt the couch slide back an inch. He didn’t say anything. She didn’t mind. It had been nine years. And Frank had never been good at small talk. The only person she’d ever seen him make sparkling conversation with had been her mother. They had been at the hospital for three hours now, and Kick hadn’t said a word the whole time, so he was probably used to the silence. He stared contemplatively at the lid of his coffee, and his face went hangdog again. He exhaled a deep sigh. As Kick studied him through her hair, she realized that he wasn’t sad at all; the lines had just etched in his face this way.

  Frank caught her looking at him and his eyes brightened. He reached for his jacket and pulled a candy bar out of the pocket. He held it out to her. “Here, eat this,” he said. He lowered his eyebrows. “You still like Snickers?”

  He had done this during the trial: brought her candy to keep her spirits up.

  “You bought me a candy bar,” Kick said skeptically. It was such a strange gesture, she didn’t know what to make of it.

  Frank shrugged. “You’re too grown-up for candy bars now?”

  Actually, she was starving. She snatched the Snickers bar from Frank’s hand, tore the wrapper open, and took a bite of the chocolate. For an instant she actually felt better.

  Frank took the plastic lid off his coffee cup and blew on it, looking pleased with himself.

  Kick ate half of the candy bar, swallowing sometimes after only a couple of chews. She could feel flakes of chocolate at the corners of her mouth.

  “You get my cards?” Frank asked.

  Kick stopped chewing in mid-bite.

  Frank must have realized that this wasn’t the time, that she wasn’t ready, because he withdrew slightly on the couch. “It’s okay,” he said, scratching his neck. “Never mind.”

  She started to chew again, but the chocolate had made her saliva thick and her mouth felt sticky. She set the rest of the candy bar on the table. “Do you know his real name?” she asked.

  Frank blew some more on his coffee. “Nope,” he said.

  They sat in silence for a while, Frank blowing on his coffee, scratching his beard, then taking a tiny sip from the cup, then blowing on it some more; Kick picking the hairs of her dead dog off her dress and adding them to the stack on her cushion. “And the FBI just lets private citizens elbow in on investigations now?” she asked.

  Frank breathed a heavy sigh and slugged back a full sip from his cup even though it was still steaming and looked like it hurt. Then he settled the cup on his knee and held it there.

  “The guy he works for,” Frank said, “this guy, he topples regimes.” His eyebrows lifted an inch. “He wins wars, Kick. If our government has a special interest in the outcome of a revolution—and we always do—Bishop’s boss gets a call. He gets the weapons in. He gets the blood on his hands. No congressional hearings. The U.S. gets to look above the fray. Our international interests are protected.” He chuckled and shook his head. “A guy like that? You give him anything he wants.”

  Kick noticed that Frank had never used Devlin’s name, so she didn’t either. “I thought Bishop’s boss was retired,” she said.

  “Guys like that don’t get to retire.”

  “And what about me?” Kick’s voice wavered. “I just go home and pretend none of this has happened?”

  “I don’t want you to go home, kiddo,” Frank said. “Not until we know the situation.”

  Kick saw him sneak a glance at his watch.

  “But I’ve got to get back to work,” he announced, standing up. He got his jacket from the chair. He wasn’t looking at Kick; it seemed to her that he was making a special effort not to.

  She knew then what he’d done. It made perfect sense. Even as a kid, she’d figured him for a sentimentalist.

  “You called her, didn’t you,” Kick said.

  He looked sheepish, found out. She didn’t know how he’d been able to carry on an affair for a year. He cracked under the slightest pressure. “I called her.”

  Kick took a shaky breath and her eyes fell on the pile of dog hair she’d made. It really wasn’t much when it was all put together.

  Frank scratched the back of his neck. “She’s your mother,” he said.

  Paula had made a career out of it.

  “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” Frank said, pulling on his jacket. “They’ll let me know about James.”

  Kick saw through him. She always had. “You’re just trying to make an escape before she gets here,” she said.

  Frank hesitated. “I know you think I’m a coward,” he said.

  Kick wished she could take it back. They were bound, she and Frank. They understood something about one another. “You saved me,” she said.

  Frank gave her a bitter smile. “Then I broke up your family,” he said. He lowered his head and turned for the door. “I’m a real white knight.”

  Kick gathered the dog hair into her palm. “Well, there’s that,” she said under her breath.

  She heard the door open and looked up to see Frank standing face-to-face with her mother. Kick had thought she had met some emotional quota for the day, some point where the universe says, Enough. Frank jumped back, looking almost comically panicked. Paula Lannigan breezed past him with a phone to her face, wearing a shimmering gold satin blouse and chartreuse trousers. Her blond hair had been crafted into an up-do. She was in full makeup. Kick wondered bleakly if her mother had stopped for a media interview on the way to the hospital.

  Paula lowered her phone. “Hello, Frank,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Hello, Paula,” Frank mumbled. He made a jittery motion with his hands indicating the coffee table. “There’s coffee there for you. Two Splendas.”

  Paula gave him a distracted nod, then she hurried to Kick, sat down beside her, and reached an arm around her shoulder.

  Kick had a vague awareness of Frank saying good-bye and leaving. Her mother gave her shoulders a squeeze. Kick couldn’t look at her. The dress looked like bathroom wallpaper, but it had been expensive. Her mother’s gifts were always expensive.

  Instead Kick fixed her gaze on her lap. There was a dog hair on the hem of the yellow dress and she picked it up and moved it to the pile. Her mother’s arm remained around Kick’s shoulders, a steady, patient pressure.

  Her mother smelled like Eternity by Calvin Klein. She had smelled like that as long as Kick could remember.

  Kick knew what her mother would say: that Kick should have put Monster down months ago; that she’d been selfish. And Kick knew she was right, because if she had done that, then she would have been there, and her dog would not have died alone.

  Her mother patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “You gave him a good life,” she said.

  It was the first time Kick ever remembered her mother saying exactly the right thing.

  Kick hiccuped back a sob. Then the floodgates opened. Her mother pulled her close and Kick clung to her and cried.

  27

>   “I SPENT THE NIGHT at my mother’s,” Kick told James. She was dressed in her mother’s clothes, her brain fogged by her mother’s pharmaceuticals: Ambien to help her sleep last night, Klonopin for anxiety in the morning. The pills made Kick drowsy and thirsty, but she took them without protest. She wanted to dull her senses.

  “If you could open your eyes,” she continued, “you’d laugh.” Her mother’s dark denim designer jeans were an inch too long, and the heather-gray jersey top with the cowl neckline and the asymmetrical peplum had looked edgy in her mother’s closet but on Kick just made her look like she was wearing a shirt backward. The only pair of her mother’s shoes that came close to fitting were hot-pink plastic flip-flops with silver-sequined straps. “You’d die laughing.”

  James’s head was tipped back on a pillow and his mouth was open around a clear tube that had been forced down his throat and secured with clear surgical tape around his lips. The other end of the tube led to a ventilator. The hiss of every forced breath had a mechanical presence, quality, each breath lasting exactly the same duration, spaced exactly the same length apart. His slender shoulders were bare. He had too many surgical dressings to wear a gown; the bandages had to be changed, ports flushed. Tubes drained from his abdomen; a catheter fed fluid into a bag below his bed. His thin arms were threaded with IVs and wrapped with more surgical tape. Bandages covered the fresh ligature marks on his wrists.

  He wasn’t asleep or even unconscious; he was sedated, which was worse. He didn’t stir or flinch or flutter his eyelashes. His chest and chin rose in rhythm with the machine. Otherwise he lay there like a corpse.

  Kick watched him for a while, then she dug her handcuffs out of the purse under her chair and she cuffed her wrist to the side bar of James’s hospital bed. It was an activity, a way to stay focused, like playing solitaire. Kick could do it in her sleep. But something went wrong. She flattened the paper clip, she notched the end, but it wouldn’t catch in the keyhole. She wiggled it, but it was no use. Frustrated, Kick started over, this time notching the other side of the paper clip and trying that. The metal cuff rattled against the bed railing as she worked the paper clip fruitlessly in the lock. Kick started to sweat. James’s chest expanded and deflated. Kick’s own breathing was twice as fast. She glanced at the door and tried to figure out how she was going to explain this to the next nurse who walked in. “This isn’t funny,” she told James.